The package can be used to backup an entire Github organization, repository or user account, including starred repos, issues and wikis in the most appropriate format (clones for wikis, json files for issues).
- GIT 1.9+
- Python
Using PIP via PyPI:
pip install github-backup
Using PIP via Github (more likely the latest version):
pip install git+https://github.com/josegonzalez/python-github-backup.git#egg=github-backup
Install note for python newcomers:
Python scripts are unlikely to be included in your $PATH by default, this means it cannot be run directly in terminal with $ github-backup ..., you can either add python's install path to your environments $PATH or call the script directly e.g. using $ ~/.local/bin/github-backup.*
Show the CLI help output:
github-backup -h
CLI Help output:
github-backup [-h] [-u USERNAME] [-p PASSWORD] [-t TOKEN_CLASSIC]
[-f TOKEN_FINE] [--as-app] [-o OUTPUT_DIRECTORY]
[-l LOG_LEVEL] [-i] [--starred] [--all-starred]
[--watched] [--followers] [--following] [--all] [--issues]
[--issue-comments] [--issue-events] [--pulls]
[--pull-comments] [--pull-commits] [--pull-details]
[--labels] [--hooks] [--milestones] [--repositories]
[--bare] [--lfs] [--wikis] [--gists] [--starred-gists]
[--skip-archived] [--skip-existing] [-L [LANGUAGES ...]]
[-N NAME_REGEX] [-H GITHUB_HOST] [-O] [-R REPOSITORY]
[-P] [-F] [--prefer-ssh] [-v]
[--keychain-name OSX_KEYCHAIN_ITEM_NAME]
[--keychain-account OSX_KEYCHAIN_ITEM_ACCOUNT]
[--releases] [--latest-releases NUMBER_OF_LATEST_RELEASES]
[--skip-prerelease] [--assets]
[--exclude [REPOSITORY [REPOSITORY ...]]
[--throttle-limit THROTTLE_LIMIT] [--throttle-pause THROTTLE_PAUSE]
USER
Backup a github account
positional arguments:
USER github username
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-u USERNAME, --username USERNAME
username for basic auth
-p PASSWORD, --password PASSWORD
password for basic auth. If a username is given but
not a password, the password will be prompted for.
-f TOKEN_FINE, --token-fine TOKEN_FINE
fine-grained personal access token or path to token
(file://...)
-t TOKEN_CLASSIC, --token TOKEN_CLASSIC
personal access, OAuth, or JSON Web token, or path to
token (file://...)
--as-app authenticate as github app instead of as a user.
-o OUTPUT_DIRECTORY, --output-directory OUTPUT_DIRECTORY
directory at which to backup the repositories
-l LOG_LEVEL, --log-level LOG_LEVEL
log level to use (default: info, possible levels:
debug, info, warning, error, critical)
-i, --incremental incremental backup
--starred include JSON output of starred repositories in backup
--all-starred include starred repositories in backup [*]
--watched include JSON output of watched repositories in backup
--followers include JSON output of followers in backup
--following include JSON output of following users in backup
--all include everything in backup (not including [*])
--issues include issues in backup
--issue-comments include issue comments in backup
--issue-events include issue events in backup
--pulls include pull requests in backup
--pull-comments include pull request review comments in backup
--pull-commits include pull request commits in backup
--pull-details include more pull request details in backup [*]
--labels include labels in backup
--hooks include hooks in backup (works only when
authenticated)
--milestones include milestones in backup
--repositories include repository clone in backup
--bare clone bare repositories
--lfs clone LFS repositories (requires Git LFS to be
installed, https://git-lfs.github.com) [*]
--wikis include wiki clone in backup
--gists include gists in backup [*]
--starred-gists include starred gists in backup [*]
--skip-existing skip project if a backup directory exists
-L [LANGUAGES [LANGUAGES ...]], --languages [LANGUAGES [LANGUAGES ...]]
only allow these languages
-N NAME_REGEX, --name-regex NAME_REGEX
python regex to match names against
-H GITHUB_HOST, --github-host GITHUB_HOST
GitHub Enterprise hostname
-O, --organization whether or not this is an organization user
-R REPOSITORY, --repository REPOSITORY
name of repository to limit backup to
-P, --private include private repositories [*]
-F, --fork include forked repositories [*]
--prefer-ssh Clone repositories using SSH instead of HTTPS
-v, --version show program's version number and exit
--keychain-name OSX_KEYCHAIN_ITEM_NAME
OSX ONLY: name field of password item in OSX keychain
that holds the personal access or OAuth token
--keychain-account OSX_KEYCHAIN_ITEM_ACCOUNT
OSX ONLY: account field of password item in OSX
keychain that holds the personal access or OAuth token
--releases include release information, not including assets or
binaries
--latest-releases NUMBER_OF_LATEST_RELEASES
include certain number of the latest releases;
only applies if including releases
--skip-prerelease skip prerelease and draft versions; only applies if including releases
--assets include assets alongside release information; only
applies if including releases
--exclude [REPOSITORY [REPOSITORY ...]]
names of repositories to exclude from backup.
--throttle-limit THROTTLE_LIMIT
start throttling of GitHub API requests after this
amount of API requests remain
--throttle-pause THROTTLE_PAUSE
wait this amount of seconds when API request
throttling is active (default: 30.0, requires
--throttle-limit to be set)
Password-based authentication will fail if you have two-factor authentication enabled, and will be deprecated by 2023 EOY.
--username is used for basic password authentication and separate from the positional argument USER, which specifies the user account you wish to back up.
Classic tokens are slightly less secure as they provide very coarse-grained permissions.
If you need authentication for long-running backups (e.g. for a cron job) it is recommended to use fine-grained personal access token -f TOKEN_FINE.
You can "generate new token", choosing the repository scope by selecting specific repos or all repos. On Github this is under Settings -> Developer Settings -> Personal access tokens -> Fine-grained Tokens
Customise the permissions for your use case, but for a personal account full backup you'll need to enable the following permissions:
User permissions: Read access to followers, starring, and watching.
Repository permissions: Read access to code, commit statuses, issues, metadata, pages, pull requests, and repository hooks.
If cloning repos is enabled with --repositories, --all-starred, --wikis, --gists, --starred-gists using the --prefer-ssh argument will use ssh for cloning the git repos, but all other connections will still use their own protocol, e.g. API requests for issues uses HTTPS.
To clone with SSH, you'll need SSH authentication setup as usual with Github, e.g. via SSH public and private keys.
Note: On Mac OSX the token can be stored securely in the user's keychain. To do this:
- Open Keychain from "Applications -> Utilities -> Keychain Access"
- Add a new password item using "File -> New Password Item"
- Enter a name in the "Keychain Item Name" box. You must provide this name to github-backup using the --keychain-name argument.
- Enter an account name in the "Account Name" box, enter your Github username as set above. You must provide this name to github-backup using the --keychain-account argument.
- Enter your Github personal access token in the "Password" box
Note: When you run github-backup, you will be asked whether you want to allow "security" to use your confidential information stored in your keychain. You have two options:
- Allow: In this case you will need to click "Allow" each time you run github-backup
- Always Allow: In this case, you will not be asked for permission when you run github-backup in future. This is less secure, but is required if you want to schedule github-backup to run automatically
"github-backup" will automatically throttle itself based on feedback from the Github API.
Their API is usually rate-limited to 5000 calls per hour. The API will ask github-backup to pause until a specific time when the limit is reset again (at the start of the next hour). This continues until the backup is complete.
During a large backup, such as --all-starred, and on a fast connection this can result in (~20 min) pauses with bursts of API calls periodically maxing out the API limit. If this is not suitable it has been observed under real-world conditions that overriding the throttle with --throttle-limit 5000 --throttle-pause 0.6 provides a smooth rate across the hour, although a --throttle-pause 0.72 (3600 seconds [1 hour] / 5000 limit) is theoretically safer to prevent large rate-limit pauses.
When you use the --lfs option, you will need to make sure you have Git LFS installed.
Instructions on how to do this can be found on https://git-lfs.github.com.
To run the tool in a Docker container use the following command:
sudo docker run --rm -v /path/to/backup:/data --name github-backup ghcr.io/josegonzalez/python-github-backup -o /data $OPTIONS $USER
The --all argument does not include: cloning private repos (-P, --private), cloning forks (-F, --fork), cloning starred repositories (--all-starred), --pull-details, cloning LFS repositories (--lfs), cloning gists (--starred-gists) or cloning starred gist repos (--starred-gists). See examples for more.
Using the --all-starred argument to clone all starred repositories may use a large amount of storage space, especially if --all or more arguments are used. e.g. commonly starred repos can have tens of thousands of issues, many large assets and the repo itself etc. Consider just storing links to starred repos in JSON format with --starred.
Using (-i, --incremental) will only request new data from the API since the last run (successful or not). e.g. only request issues from the API since the last run.
This means any blocking errors on previous runs can cause a large amount of missing data in backups.
Some errors will block the backup run by exiting the script. e.g. receiving a 403 Forbidden error from the Github API.
If the incremental argument is used, this will result in the next backup only requesting API data since the last blocked/failed run. Potentially causing unexpected large amounts of missing data.
It's therefore recommended to only use the incremental argument if the output/result is being actively monitored, or complimented with periodic full non-incremental runs, to avoid unexpected missing data in a regular backup runs.
Starred public repo hooks blocking
Since the
--allargument includes--hooks, if you use--alland--all-starredtogether to clone a users starred public repositories, the backup will likely error and block the backup continuing.This is due to needing the correct permission for
--hookson public repos.Releases blocking
A known
--releases(required for--assets) error will sometimes block the backup.If you're backing up a lot of repositories with releases e.g. an organisation or
--all-starred. You may need to remove--releases(and therefore--assets) to complete a backup. Documented in issue 209.
Using the bare clone argument (--bare) will actually call git's clone --mirror command. There's a subtle difference between bare and mirror clone.
From git docs "Compared to --bare, --mirror not only maps local branches of the source to local branches of the target, it maps all refs (including remote-tracking branches, notes etc.) and sets up a refspec configuration such that all these refs are overwritten by a git remote update in the target repository."
The starred normal repo cloning (--all-starred) argument stores starred repos separately to the users own repositories. However, using --starred-gists will store starred gists within the same directory as the users own gists --gists. Also, all gist repo directory names are IDs not the gist's name.
The --skip-existing argument will skip a backup if the directory already exists, even if the backup in that directory failed (perhaps due to a blocking error). This may result in unexpected missing data in a regular backup.
Backup all repositories, including private ones using a classic token:
export ACCESS_TOKEN=SOME-GITHUB-TOKEN github-backup WhiteHouse --token $ACCESS_TOKEN --organization --output-directory /tmp/white-house --repositories --private
Use a fine-grained access token to backup a single organization repository with everything else (wiki, pull requests, comments, issues etc):
export FINE_ACCESS_TOKEN=SOME-GITHUB-TOKEN ORGANIZATION=docker REPO=cli # e.g. git@github.com:docker/cli.git github-backup $ORGANIZATION -P -f $FINE_ACCESS_TOKEN -o . --all -O -R $REPO
Quietly and incrementally backup useful Github user data (public and private repos with SSH) including; all issues, pulls, all public starred repos and gists (omitting "hooks", "releases" and therefore "assets" to prevent blocking). Great for a cron job.
export FINE_ACCESS_TOKEN=SOME-GITHUB-TOKEN GH_USER=YOUR-GITHUB-USER github-backup -f $FINE_ACCESS_TOKEN --prefer-ssh -o ~/github-backup/ -l error -P -i --all-starred --starred --watched --followers --following --issues --issue-comments --issue-events --pulls --pull-comments --pull-commits --labels --milestones --repositories --wikis --releases --assets --pull-details --gists --starred-gists $GH_USER
Debug an error/block or incomplete backup into a temporary directory. Omit "incremental" to fill a previous incomplete backup.
export FINE_ACCESS_TOKEN=SOME-GITHUB-TOKEN GH_USER=YOUR-GITHUB-USER github-backup -f $FINE_ACCESS_TOKEN -o /tmp/github-backup/ -l debug -P --all-starred --starred --watched --followers --following --issues --issue-comments --issue-events --pulls --pull-comments --pull-commits --labels --milestones --repositories --wikis --releases --assets --pull-details --gists --starred-gists $GH_USER
This project is considered feature complete for the primary maintainer @josegonzalez. If you would like a bugfix or enhancement, pull requests are welcome. Feel free to contact the maintainer for consulting estimates if you'd like to sponsor the work instead.
A huge thanks to all the contibuters!
This project currently contains no unit tests. To run linting:
pip install flake8 flake8 --ignore=E501